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Ryan Collison

I write about cool science and share it here.

Ion Channels and Gap Junctions: The Bioelectric Hardware

Ion Channels and Gap Junctions: The Bioelectric Hardware

Before brains existed, cells were already talking electrically. Ion channels gate charged ions across membranes; gap junctions let cells share electrical state directly — the hardware layer of bioelectric intelligence.

Xenobots and Anthrobots: Biological Robots

Xenobots and Anthrobots: Biological Robots

Xenobots proved the concept: take cells, let evolution design a body plan, get a living machine with no evolutionary precedent. Anthrobots extended this with human cells that self-assemble and have repaired scratched neurons in lab cultures. Biologically-based robotics is a genuinely new field.

Joseph Tainter: Diminishing Returns on Complexity

Joseph Tainter: Diminishing Returns on Complexity

Civilizations don't collapse from weakness — they collapse from too much complexity. Tainter's theory: every crisis demands a solution, every solution adds overhead, and eventually the overhead overwhelms the system.

Every Civilization Thinks It's Special

Every Civilization Thinks It's Special

Rome thought it was eternal. The Maya thought their calendar cycle guaranteed renewal. Collapse science doesn't care about exceptionalism — it finds the same structural signatures in every fallen civilization.

The Science of Collapse

The Science of Collapse

The Maya, Rome, the Bronze Age civilizations — they didn't fall for single, dramatic reasons. Complexity science and archaeology reveal recurring patterns in how societies overshoot their carrying capacity, lose resilience, and unravel.

Seshat: What 10,000 Years of Data Actually Shows

Seshat: What 10,000 Years of Data Actually Shows

Seshat is a systematic database of human history: thousands of variables coded across hundreds of societies over 10,000 years. The patterns it reveals about collapse, complexity, and cooperation challenge several long-standing historical narratives.

Geometry Explained

Geometry Explained

Flat geometry is just one case of a broader family. Once you see that Euclid's parallel postulate is optional, and that curved spaces obey consistent rules, geometry transforms from a school subject into a window on the structure of reality.